1.
"In the nearly ten years since her marriage she has taken several lovers, but none like twenty-year-old Jules, with his angelic curls and pink and white cheeks and frail blond neediness."
What is "frail blond neediness"?
I would say slim, blond, fragile and vulnerable.
2.
"He published titillating books, but a stable of writers secretly wrote them."
What does "titillating" mean here?
Sexually stimulating/suggestive.
3.
"Willy rejected her work...He returned to his stable of ghost-writers, to his artistic feuds and his mistresses..."
What are "artistic feuds"?
Arguments about artistic merit between artists, writers etc.